Review: 2034 by Elliot Ackerman & Admiral James Stavridis
2034: A NOVEL OF THE NEXT WORLD WAR, a 2021 New York Times bestseller by Elliot Ackerman and Admiral James Stavridis, begins thirteen years into a familiar future. Territorial aggression continues to stoke tension in the South China Sea. The military superiority of the United States was always a deterrent against conflict—until now. China’s cyber capability has secretly advanced, flipping the advantage. The Chinese navy blacks out the communications and technology just before they attack three U.S. warships in disputed waters and kill hundreds of American sailors.
The conflict could have begun and ended there. Leadership of the People’s Republic of China assumed the crippled command in Washington D.C. would stand down. However, Vladimir Putin is still the President of Russia, still an instigator of sabotage and chaos that pushes rival nuclear powers into a cycle of overreach and miscalculation, escalation and revenge that becomes World War III. Amid all the death and destruction, a rising nation with the brightest future to lose joins the conflict to fight for peace.
The novel 2034 contains a wealth of history of modern warfare. The ensemble cast of Captain Sarah Hunt, Major Chris “Wedge” Mitchell, Dr. Sandeep “Sandy” Chowdhury, Brigadier General Qassem Farshad, and Admiral Lin Bao is diverse, realistic, and beautifully rendered in powerful prose.
One character, Admiral Lin Bao, remembers his far-fetched dream to teach history, and its repetition, at the U.S. Naval War College in Rhode Island. He wonders if he could have passed on enough knowledge and wisdom to alter the course to WWIII. You can almost hear the authors speaking through their character. Both are military insiders: Elliot Ackerman is a Marine Corps veteran who served five tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, and Jim Stavridis is a retired four-star admiral and former supreme allied commander of NATO. As they crafted the novel together, they must have hoped that 2034 could influence enough hearts and minds to avoid the frightfully plausible future they have laid out as warning.
J4.
You sunk my battleship.